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The Purge is a famously-known movie franchise of action horror films depicting a dystopian version of America that observes an annual event known as “the Purge,” a 12-hour period during which all crime, including murder, is decriminalized. No-prep heavy hitter Ryan Mitchell, it turns out, only needed five hours to slay everyone on the property at the inaugural The Purge No-Prep, so he could perhaps be forgiven if he took advantage of the remaining time and hightailed North of the posted speed limit on the drive back home to Kansas City.
Jeff Thomas, the promoter who brought the world the now-famed War in The Woods no-prep at the Brown County Dragway in rural Indiana, ventured 64 miles to the southwest to partner with Jeremy Wagler and the team at Wagler Motorsports Park for the inaugural edition of The Purge, an event Thomas hopes to build to a similar level of success. Thomas, in an effort to test the waters with this new event, put the entire program together in just three weeks time, even assembling a stockpile of sponsors that included our good friends at Strange Engineering and ProCharger. Thomas knew this one would have humble beginnings, but every event must start somewhere.
(Left) Event promoter Jeff Thomas. (Right) Texas' own, street racing legend "Limpy" was the man in charge of the evening's racing, ensuring that a jump, if nothing else on this night of lawlessness, was still considered criminal.
Put together at the last minute, the overwhelming consensus was that what the event lacked in quantity, it absolutely made up for in quality. Consider the seminal round of Small Tire, which featured Mitchell, a terror from Indiana to Texas and all points in between, as well as Isaac Preston in the incredibly impressive “Frankenstein” C5 Corvette, Jasper Graham’s “LL Spool J” Fox body Mustang, and Dan Belchers’ sinister “Hate Tank” ’69 RoadRunner.
After getting tree’d by Preston and his twin-turbo Corvette at the hit in a titanic final round matchup for all the marbles, Mitchell drove around Preston at the stripe when he knocked the tire off and had to lift to maintain control of his beautiful machine.
A game-time decision to allow small-tire entries into Big Tire allowed Mitchell to score a double-up on the night. Mitchell ousted the big-tire car of Eric Trigalet in the opening round, and fellow Small Tire racer Trevor Niebrugge got by Doug Patterson’s big-tire Camaro, putting, ironically enough, a pair of smalls into the Big Tire final. In a solid contest that saw both cars under power all the way to the stripe, however, Mitchell simply had too much for Niebrugge and drove away to score his second win of the night.
Thomas will return to Wagler Motorsports Park for two races next year: Gangsters Paradise will move from Brown County and be contested on June 28-29, and the second running of The Purge will go down October 18-19.
Scott Barker drove his SN95 Mustang to the win in the Stick Shift class.
Joe Davis murdered the Hard Tire field in his Chevy S-10.
Matt Hayworth won out in the Second Chance Hard Tire race.
Mitchell's unassuming Pontiac Firebird is powered by a 540 cubic-inch big-block paired with an F-3R-136 ProCharger. This was Mitchell's second "double" of the 2023 season.
Indianapolis native Doug Patterson's wild-looking Big Tire Camaro is a head-turner. The stretched wheelbase third-gen sports an eye-catching paint scheme and an even more unique twin-turbo setup that protrudes from the engine bay. Those are 100mm snails situated atop a 427 cubic inch LS.
Thomas was pulling double duty of his own, managing the event and racing his '65 Nova in Small Tire. Thomas drove the car, sporting a 632-inch big-block Chevrolet with three kits of nitrous oxide, to the Second Chance win.
Regular DRAGZINE readers may remember the gorgeous all-original-steel Big Tire '69 Camaro of Eric Trigalet that was featured on the digital pages here last year, Well, this is Trigalet's other car, an equally show-stopping '69 he races in Small Tire, sporting a CN billet SB2 small-block with a single 118mm Precision turbo.
Isaac Preston drove up from Kentucky to make the final round in Small Tire with his "Frankenstein" Corvette, a car whose history in the sport is well documented.
Haling from nearby Bloomington, Indiana, Zach Rinnert entered this 1997 Chevrolet S-10 bubble-side pickup in Small Tire. The pickup sports a 400 cubic inch LS with an 88mm turbo, controlled by a Haltech Elite 2500 ECU. Rinnert hurt the engine in the pickup at the recent fall edition of War in the Woods, and this was the first time back out on the fresh new combo.
Demetrios Giokaris trekked over from Des Plaines, Illinois with his sharp 1990 Fox body Mustang notchback. The all-steel car sports its original paint and is motivated by a 427-inch LS with a single 104mm turbocharger. Giokaris is still "working the kinks out" of the combination after hurting the engine in the spring.
Track owner Jeremy Wagler, who maintains a great friendship with Street Outlaws’ FarmTruck & AZN, capped the evening’s festivities with a friendly match race between two of his track employees in a FarmTruck replica and the pair’s own Cummins-powered Hearse.
